This is the Strait of Gibraltar, easily one
of the most important waterways, not just for Europe but for the world. This passageway, barely 15km wide at its narrowest,
separates Europe from Africa, and Spain from Morocco. Except not entirely, as if you look closely,
you will see these two Spanish exclaves in Northern Africa. These are Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish cities
located on the Moroccan side of the sea. But despite that, their residents are Spanish,
they pay with Euros, they speak Spanish, have access to Spanish services, and fly the Spanish
flag. And these cities aren’t alone. For Spain, these are the Plazas de Soberanía,
or the places of sovereignty, and while most of them are just small rocks– one of which
is connected to Morocco by the shortest border in the world– two have grown to sizable
cities with… creepily similar populations. The fact that the EU has borders in Africa
is a huge deal, but what I want to talk about is… why does Spain even have entire cities
on the other side of the sea? Or rather, why do they still have them? [Thanks to
Paradox Interactive for making this video possible] This is Ceuta, or what locals might call “thew-ta”,
from the Latin septa for the fortress upon the seven hills. At first glance, things don’t seem much
different from any small cities over in Andalusia on the other side of the strait. There are quaint squares and seafood restaurants
and dragon statues and nice beaches and Hindu temples and everything. However Ceuta doesn’t have an airport, so
the only way to get there from mainland Spain is by a ferry or a special helicopter airline. Unfortunately the website was incredibly finicky
and didn‘t let me pay for a ticket, so I guess we‘ll just look at it. By most accounts it would be completely unremarkable,
were it not for its location. Alright let‘s back up for a moment. These strongholds of sovereignty are sort
of a catch-all term for a bunch of rocks within the Mediterranean owned and administered by
Spain. These include everything from the tiny Peñón
de Alhucemas to entire cities like Melilla and Ceuta, and it’s these cities I want
to talk about, particularly this one, Ceuta, at the Straits of Gibraltar… mostly because I just went there to make this
video. So it’s just a few leftover colonial possessions
that Spain refused to let go of, makes sense. But no, Morocco was colonized by France, not
Spain, and Ceuta being under Iberian control pre-dates Europe’s colonizing of the rest
of Africa. Here let’s look at this map I got from my
hotel. It’s kinda zoomed in but we can deal with
that. Around 2,700 years ago the main power of the
Mediterranean world were the Phoenicians, and to them this city had not just a perfect
location near the Strait of Gibraltar, but perfect geography in and of itself. The old city is located here, on the Peninsula
of Almina, connected by a narrow, easily defensible isthmus to the continent, only a proverbial
stone’s throw from the powerhouse city Gades, nowadays known as Cádiz. Or I guess it was a peninsula but now is technically
an island, but I think that just proves my point. So in other words, it was incredibly valuable
and incredibly easy to defend, it’s not like a rival power can just take it from you
in one day with barely any fight… right? HISTORY
To understand what’s going on with these borders nowadays though, we need to go a bit
forward, past the Romans but still before Spain was even aware of the Americas, and
in fact back when the map was sort of the other way around. Here, look at this map from around 1360. During this time, the south of the Iberian
Peninsula was ruled by the Emirate of Granada. Islam first spread to the peninsula in the
8th century under the rule of the Umayyads in Damascus, and Ceuta itself was used by
the Umayyads as a launching point into the Iberian Peninsula. After the Umayyad invasion of the Iberian
Peninsula in 711, the majority of the region spent nearly 800 years under the rule of various
dynasties. Neither side was completely unified the whole
time, but at this time there were two constants: the very north was Christian while the south
was Islamic, and both, like, really, really wanted to control the other half. This began a long campaign among the disunited
northern kingdoms to try to expand to the south, which to their perspective was a reconquest…
or a Reconquista. [AD BREAK]
Contrary to popular belief, the Reconquista was not a single, glorious push to conquer
the peninsula, but a much slower affair that unfolded over centuries. During this time the Christian kingdoms of
the north were anything but united, and for their part neither were the the Islamic Taifas
in the south. If you want to see for yourself what this
period of history was like, and change the tides of history, you can recreate this for
yourself in the upcoming Fate of Iberia expansion pack for Crusader Kings III. This pack will come out on the 31st of May
and adds new events, traditions, outfits, and music, all inspired by the Reconquista. You can get the Fate of Iberia expansion pack,
and help support the channel, by clicking the link in the top of the description. Okay, now to find out what happened with Ceuta. Eventually Portugal captured the city of Ceuta
from the Marinid Sultanate, a Berber kingdom that ruled Morocco at the time. You can even see it on the design of the Ceuta
flag, featuring the same background as the flag of Lisbon, while the coat of arms is
almost the same as Portugal’s. The area also had another geographic quirk,
which served to Portugal’s advantage and to Morocco’s detriment: the Rif Mountains,
making this region considerably harder to hold onto from the Moroccan core. Portugal sent forces to besiege the city,
however its defenders were unprepared for the attack, which meant Portugal was able
to take the city after a rather anticlimactic siege. With that, Portugal took control of a vital
port at the mouth of the Mediterranean, not just from the Moors, but from their rival
Castile. And it wasn’t just important for trade heading
in and out of the Mediterranean, but to and from many of the real richest powers of the
time, deeper in Africa. But instead of continuing through Ceuta as
it had been, the trans-Saharan Trade simply went through nearby Tangier instead. In 1437 Portuguese forces tried and disastrously
failed to take Tangier, and ended up signing a deal with the Marinids, promising to give
Ceuta back to them… eventually. As Portugal began to expand all around the
African coasts however, they would briefly take nearby Ksar es-Seghir and Tangier, eventually
formalizing their rule over Ceuta. After the Iberian Union between Spain and
Portugal formed in 1580, more and more Spaniards began to move to Ceuta, gradually shifting
the population from Portuguese to Spanish. For this reason, when Portugal fought for
its independence in 1640, Ceuta became one of the few cities in Portugal’s sphere of
influence to side with Spain, eventually being formally granted to Spain in 1668. MODERN CEUTA
However for much of the 20th century, Spain held a protectorate over northern Morocco,
and in fact this station behind me used to serve trains heading between Ceuta and the
capital, Tetouan. What I mentioned about Spain not colonizing
Morocco isn’t completely true, though it was mostly true. In 1912, Spain’s sphere of influence over
the northern Moroccan coast was turned into a full, formal protectorate, alongside another
strip in the south. This protectorate was short-lived though,
as the Spanish protectorate in Morocco combined with French Morocco in 1956 to form… regular
Morocco, though of course (despite being good Catholics) Spain never pulled out of Ceuta
and Melilla. And now what does Morocco think about this
whole arrangement? Well given that their attempted Siege of Ceuta
was the longest siege of a single city in history, at 27 years, what do you think they
think about it? To Morocco, these cities are core territories
that Spain illegally holds– a classic case of European colonialism–, while to Spain
they are centuries-old integral parts of their nation. Thus far, Spain doesn’t even address the
issue, and even beside Spanish protectionism there is still one major hurdle to these cities
becoming Moroccan any time soon: the people in Ceuta and Melilla, who overwhelmingly wish
to remain with Spain, and who would surely complain if they now had to take a plane to
get to Spain. To be fair to Morocco though, it’s easy
to see why this drives them insane, if I were to say it… plainly. In a sense it almost resembles the situation
with Gibraltar on the other side of the strait, which remains a British Overseas Territory,
no matter what Spain thinks of the arrangement. In 2021 Morocco closed its northern land border
with Spain, but it wasn’t because of COVID, or at least not entirely. This is Brahim Ghali, and when Spain allowed
him to seek treatment for COVID in Logroño, Morocco didn’t take kindly to this. You see, Ghali is the leader of a group known
as the Polisario Front, the group seeking independence for Western Sahara from Morocco. In the following months, Moroccan guards strangely
turned a blind eye when a large group of migrants– most from Morocco itself– made an attempt
to jump the border into the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla. This is something Morocco is normally much
more proactive in, as it should be mentioned however that, despite these disputes (and
many others, like the water rights around the Canary Islands), the two countries generally
work amicably in curbing illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and cross-border terrorism,
as these cities– despite any tourism slogans they throw around– often serve more as the
gateways to Europe than to Africa. At the end of the day though, Ceuta is essentially
no different than any Spanish island city like Palma de Mallorca or Las Palmas de Gran
Canaria, just attached to Morocco.
